


Welcome to the Black Parade

by antsattheedge



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Death, Gen, The Black Parade, i mean he’s dead and he’s joining the black parade what more am I supposed to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 11:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antsattheedge/pseuds/antsattheedge
Summary: The Patient is dead and it’s time for him to join the Black Parade.





	Welcome to the Black Parade

The Patient laid in his bed and listened to the symphony of machines around him. He heard the beeping go faster and almost felt something through the haze of pain meds. He he heard feet rushing to his room and panic and he felt himself lurch from the bed as something metal pressed down onto his chest and then he was standing on an empty street watching leaves swirl. 

He felt the ground beneath his feet and saw the old, dead looking shops that lined the streets. He found he could think clearly for the first time in months. The ghost town looked familiar but he wasn’t sure why. He felt the air next to him displace as a man appeared next to him. He looked over and saw his father. “Dad?” His voice creaked, rusted and harsh from disuse and his countless treatments. 

His father smiled at him. “No. Is that how you see me? I wouldn’t have thought your fondest memory would be with your father. You had a girl didn’t you? You loved her a lot, I think.”

The Patient spoke, though it took him a few tries. “Who are you? Where-“ His voice broke and his father filled in his sentence for him. 

“Where are we? I don’t know. You’ll figure it out soon. Look around. Is anything familiar? It may look a bit more run down than you remember but you’ve been here before.” His father paused and let the Patient look around and really study his surroundings. 

“I’m home.”

“Yes, that’s very common. To answer your first question, I am Death. Most people have worked it out by now though.” Death smiled at the Patient wryly. “You’re not the brightest are you?”

He ignored the insult. “Why am I home? Why is this the afterlife? How can you be here with me when there are thousands others dying?”

Death sighed. “You ask a lot of questions. Let’s sit, hopefully I’ll be able to answer them all before they come.” He sat down on a park bench the Patient hadn’t noticed before. He sat down beside him. 

“You are home because this is where your happiest memory was. Your happiest memory is where you will enter the Black Parade. This is the afterlife because it just is, I don’t make the rules. I am here with you because I’m not confined to one consciousness like humans. I’m smart like that. I wonder how the Parade will appear for you? It’s not always a parade, once it was a funeral procession. Some people get joy from odd things.” Death continued to rattle on more about different ways people saw the Parade but the Patient stopped listening. 

“What’s the Black Parade?” He asked Death, interrupting a surely fascinating story about the Parade as a roller coaster. 

Death harrumphed, obviously annoyed that he couldn’t finish his story. “It’s the main part of the afterlife. This is just the entry point. This is the only time I’ll be with you. Gerard will watch over you and the rest of the Parade. He’s the best overseer we’ve ever had. He’s no good about being on time though. He’s late again.” Death checked his watch. The glass was warped and black, the Patient couldn’t think of how he read anything on it. 

“Who’s Gerard?”

Death glared at him. “Stop asking so many questions. You’re incessantly curious.”

“Please.” The Patient would ask as many questions as he wanted, he’d always been curious about the afterlife. Even more so after he was diagnosed. 

Death rolled his eyes. “I’ll answer your question if you tell me about being in a hospital.” The Patient was confused but nodded his head so Death continued. “Gerard is a human who died. He got nearly everything right about the afterlife and had a natural affinity for controlling the dead so he was made overseer. He keeps order in the Parade with his song. I don’t know how we kept order before him, these past few decades have been so peaceful with him around. He also has his three band members with him to help him keep order… mostly they just keep him company though. They don’t have his talent. Now tell me about a hospital. I’ve never been sick before, I’m curious.”

“Well,” the Patient started, “they encourage your complete cooperation. It felt like every hour, on they hour, they drew blood. I’m probably exaggerating. I was there for awhile and got every kind of treatment for cancer imaginable. I was desperate not to die.” The Patient laughed. “Look how well it worked. Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it. In the last few months I was barely alive. Just drugged and hooked to machines. Surviving but not really living. I think it would have been better with her if I hadn’t been like that. I think that’s what finally drove her away.”

The Patient stopped for a long moment and when Death was about to speak he started again. “I didn’t think I’d ever get here again.” He waved his arm, gesturing at the ghostly place. “Home, I mean. My way home was through Emily. Like she’d made me feel welcome and loved again. You know?”

“Not at all,” Death said earnestly. “But that was one of the most human things I ever heard.” Death stood up. “Do you hear that? They’re only fifteen minutes late.”

The Patient strained against the silence and heard a faint sound, like a piano note. Then suddenly he saw the first float of a parade only fifteen yards away from him. As it got closer and the music got louder he started to feel hypnotized. The music wasn’t registering in his brain but he could hear it and feel the soothing pull of the melody. He was struck by the resemblance to the parade he saw as a child. 

“Quick,” Death urged. “Why is it a parade?”

Dazedly The Patient explained, “When I was a young boy my father took me into the city to see a marching band. It was the most amazing thing. All the colors and music and my dad was just so, so happy. He wasn’t happy very often. He was a sad man and that was one of the only times I saw him truly happy. I loved it. I love it.”

“Thank you. Go, be with your kind,” Death said but the Patient didn’t hear him, already walking towards the parade. He paused at the first float and the lead singer bent down and put his hand on the Patient’s cheek and sang to him. 

“And though you’re dead and gone believe me, your memory will carry on. We’ll carry on.” Then the singer straightened up and continued singing his heart out to his invisible audience. The Patient walked into line beside a ghost with an old dress, fluffy hair, and a gas mask. They took his hand and pulled him along. His feet fell into step with theirs and the rest of the parade’s. He put one foot in front of the other and thought of nothing. Finally, he had become something. He was nothing at all. He was part of the Black Parade.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don’t judge me that much I’ve never written fanfic before. Or do? Idk I can’t stop you


End file.
